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Absolute monarchy is a monarchical form of government in which the monarch has absolute power among his or her people. An absolute monarch wields unrestricted political power over the sovereign state and its people. Absolute monarchies are often hereditary but other means of transmission of power are attested. Absolute monarchy differs from limited monarchy, in which the monarch’s authority is legally bound or restricted by a constitution; consequently, an absolute monarch is an autocrat.

In theory, the absolute monarch exercises total power over the land, yet in practice the monarchy is counterbalanced by political groups from among the social classes and castes of the realm, such as the aristocracy, clergy (see caesaropapism), bourgeoisie, and proletarians.

Some monarchies have weak or symbolic legislatures and other governmental bodies that the monarch can alter or dissolve at will. Countries where the monarch still maintains absolute power are Brunei, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Swaziland, the emirates comprising the UAE (inside the regional sphere of power) and Vatican City (the Pope, however, is elected).

Historical examples

A widely held myth about Louis XIV of France (1638-1715) is that he proclaimed "L'état, c'est moi" ("I am the State!"). What Louis did say was: "The interests of the state come first. When one gives these priority, one labours for one's own good. These advantage to the state redounds to one's glory." Although often criticized for his extravagances, such as the Palace of Versailles, he reigned over France for a long period, and some historians consider him a successful absolute monarch. More recently, revisionist historians have questioned whether Louis' reign should be considered 'absolute', given the reality of the balance of power between the monarch and the nobility.

The King of France concentrated in his person legislative, executive, and judicial powers. He was the supreme judicial authority. He could condemn men to death without the right of appeal. It was both his duty to punish offences and stop them from being committed. From his judicial authority followed his power both to make laws and to annul them.

Throughout much of history, the Divine Right of Kings was the theological justification for absolute monarchy. Many European monarchs, such as those of Russia, claimed supreme autocratic power by divine right, and that their subjects had no rights to limit their power. James VI of Scotland (later also James I of England) and his son Charles I of Scotland and England tried to import this principle. Charles I's attempt to enforce Episcopal polity on the Church of Scotland led to rebellion by the Covenanters and the Bishops' Wars, then fears that Charles I was attempting to establish absolutist government along European lines was a major cause of the English Civil War, despite the fact that he did rule this way for 11 years starting in 1629, after dissolving the Parliament of England for a time. By the 19th century, the Divine Right was regarded as an obsolete theory in most countries in the Western world, except in Russia where it was still given credence as the official justification for the Tsar's power.

There is a considerable variety of opinion by historians on the extent of absolutism among European monarchs. Some, such as Perry Anderson, argue that quite a few monarchs achieved levels of absolutist control over their states, while historians such as Roger Mettam dispute the very concept of absolutism. In general, historians who disagree with the appellation of absolutism argue that most monarchs labeled as absolutist exerted no greater power over their subjects than any other non-absolutist rulers, and these historians tend to emphasize the differences between the absolutist rhetoric of monarchs and the realities of the effective use of power by these absolute monarchs. Renaissance historian William Bouwsma summed up this contradiction:

Nothing so clearly indicates the limits of royal power as the fact that governments were perennially in financial trouble, unable to tap the wealth of those most able to pay, and likely to stir up a costly revolt whenever they attempted to develop an adequate income.

— William Bouwsma

Denmark

Absolutism was underpinned by a written constitution for the first time in Europe in the 1665 Kongeloven ("King's Law") of Denmark-Norway, whose § 2 ordered that the Monarch shall from this day forth be revered and considered the most perfect and supreme person on the Earth by all his subjects, standing above all human laws and having no judge above his person, neither in spiritual nor temporal matters, except God alone. This law consequently authorized the king to abolish all other centers of power. Most important was the abolition of the Council of the Realm.

Prussia

In Brandenburg-Prussia, the concept of absolute monarch took a notable turn from the above with its emphasis on the monarch as the "first servant of the state", but it also echoed many of the important characteristics of Absolutism.His actions largely originated the militaristic streak of the Hohenzollern.

In 1653 the Diet of Brandenburg met for the last time and gave Frederick William the power to raise taxes without its consent, a strong indicator of absolutism. Frederick William enjoyed support from the nobles, who enabled the Great Elector to undermine the Diet and other representative assemblies. The leading families saw their future in cooperation with the central government and worked to establish absolutist power.

The most significant indicator of the nobles' success was the establishment of two tax rates – one for the cities and the other for the countryside - to the great advantage of the latter, which the nobles ruled. The nobles served in the upper levels of the elector's army and bureaucracy, but they also won new prosperity for themselves. The support of the Elector enabled the imposition of serfdom and the consolidation of land holdings into vast estates which provided for their wealth.

They became known as Junkers (from the German for young lord, jung Herr). Frederick William faced resistance from representative assemblies and long-independent cities in his realm. City leaders often revolted at the imposition of Electorate authority. The last notable effort was the uprising of the city of Königsberg which allied with the Estates General of Prussia to refuse to pay taxes. Frederick William crushed this revolt in 1662, by marching into the city with thousands of troops. A similar approach was used with the towns of Cleves.

Russia

Until 1905 the Tsars of Russia governed as absolute monarchs. Peter I the Great reduced the power of the nobility and strengthened the central power of the Tsar, establishing a bureaucracy and a police state. This tradition of absolutism, known as Tsarist autocracy, was expanded by Catherine II the Great and her descendants. Although Alexander II made some reforms and established an independent judicial system, Russia did not have a representative assembly or a constitution until the 1905 Revolution. However, the concept of absolutism was so ingrained in Russia that the Russian Constitution of 1906 still described the Tsar as an autocrat. Russia became the last European country to abolish absolutism and the only one to do so as late as the 20th century (the Ottoman Empire drafted its first constitution in 1877).

Sweden

The form of government instituted in Sweden under King Charles XI and passed on to his son, Charles XII is commonly referred to as absolute monarchy; however, the Swedish monarch was never absolute in the sense that he wielded arbitrary power. The monarch still ruled under the law and could only legislate in agreement with the Riksdag of the Estates; rather, the absolutism introduced was the monarch's ability to run the government unfettered by the privy council, contrary to earlier practice. The absolute rule of Charles XI was instituted by the crown and the Riksdag in order to carry out the Great Reduction which would have been made impossible by the privy council, constituted of high nobility. After the death of Charles XII in 1718, the system of absolute rule was largely blamed for the ruination of the realm in the Great Northern War, and the reaction tipped the balance of power to the other extreme end of the spectrum, ushering in the Age of Liberty. After half a century of largely unrestricted parliamentary rule proved just as ruinous, King Gustav III seized back royal power in the coup d'état of 1772, and later once again abolished the privy council under the Union and Security Act in 1789, which, in turn, was rendered void in 1809 when Gustav IV Adolf was deposed in a coup and the constitution of 1809 was put in its place. The years between 1789 and 1809, then, are also referred to as a period of absolute monarchy.

Current examples

Pope Francis, current Head of State of Vatican City

Country	Monarch
Brunei	Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah
Oman	Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said
Saudi Arabia	King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz
Swaziland	King Mswati III
Vatican City	Pope Francis

Saudi Arabia

Abdullah, current King of Saudi Arabia and Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.

Main article: Politics of Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, although, according to the Basic Law of Saudi Arabia adopted by royal decree in 1992, the king must comply with Shari'a (Islamic law) and the Qur'an. The Qur'an and the corpus of Sunnah (traditions of the Prophet Muhammad) are declared to be the Kingdom's constitution, but no written modern constitution has ever been written for Saudi Arabia, which remains the only Arab nation where no national elections have ever taken place since its founding. No political parties or national elections are permitted and according to The Economist's 2010 Democracy Index, the Saudi government is the seventh most authoritarian regime from among the 167 countries rated.

Scholarship

Anthropology, sociology, and ethology as well as various other disciplines such as political science attempt to explain the rise of absolute monarchy ranging from extrapolation generally, to Marxist explanations in terms of the class struggle as the underlying dynamic of human historical development generally and absolute monarchy in particular.

According to Norbert Elias's The Civilizing Process, monarchs such as Louis XIV could enjoy such great power because of the structure of the societies at that time: more precisely, they could play off against each other two rival classes, namely the rising bourgeoisie, who grew wealthy from commerce and industrial production, and the nobility, who lived off the land and administrative functions.

See also

• Jacques Bossuet
• Constitutional monarchy
• Democracy
• Dictatorship
• Enlightened absolutism
• Thomas Hobbes
• Monarchomachs
• Totalitarianism

Further reading

• Anderson, Perry. Lineages of the Absolutist State. London: Verso, 1974.
• Kimmel, Michael S. Absolutism and Its Discontents: State and Society in Seventeenth-Century France and England. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1988.
• Méttam, Roger. Power and Faction in Louis XIV's France. New York: Blackwell Publishers, 1988.
• Miller, John (ed.). Absolutism in Seventeenth Century Europe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990.
• Wilson, Peter H. Absolutism in Central Europe. New York: Routledge, 2000.
• Zmohra, Hillay. Monarchy, Aristocracy, and the State in Europe - 1300-1800. New York: Routledge, 2001

Category:Monarchy Category:Political theories